Burgman Building: Weekend Update: Stencilling and landscaping .

So much going on I can only touch on a few details. In the shop space I have begun the stencil process of the wall borders and I hope to start field panel stenciling soon.. Its a tedious process.

We are using a  border stencil from our Neo Grec stencil line and it will serve as an example of what we do in terms of decorative stenciling.

Given all the rain lately we had a rare, and I mean RARE day of dry weather and we headed outside to work. The "courtyard area' between the garage and building had been long overgrown and neglected and we transplanted some stuff to a more sunny location where it can actually bloom. The AC units will soon be relocated to the roof ( we have to call in the alarm people to deactivate the alarms systems for relocation), and this space can be better utilized for an outdoor entertainment space but it sorely needed a facelift and that's what we did.

Behind the building we addressed an overgrown area next to the building pulling out a lot of Virginia creeper and Ivy. We re-mulched the beds, re-laid border brick, and transplanted more stuff from the "back forty" where we virtually have our own nursery. We still have to re-lay the brick on the other side of the walk, and mulch, but with everything we do, it brings a real smile to our face to know we are bringing the building back.

Restoring some 'order' to the space has been rewarding and I am starting to see the vision of the Burgan's had with the gardens.

Other great news: the closet built-in is being painted,  a bed is in and we are moving in soon.

Burgman Building Restoration; sales counter work and hidden pathways found

In a perfect world I would have loved to have a period store counter and I may yet find one, but to get us open I have had to be creative and use recycled material to come up with something. We are 'almost there" with some trim work left to do but it should serve us well.  Its sort of "Victorian updated" but most will come in and not notice it and in this case 'blending in' is a far better alternative to some wall slatted commercial pieces I seen in other shops . I used an old IMAC left in the garage as a visual about how much space our POS monitor would stick up. Still have to finish the "screening" of that area but I think its going to work. We will have a ton of storage space for wrapping paper and boxes under the counter and I'm working on building out shelving and storage.

Upstairs Greg has been busy stripping wallpaper from the "Grand hall" as we call it . 53 feet of hallway from the stairs to the Reception Parlor just before you get to the Persian Parlor...bye, bye,  1990's wallpaper border, this space will soon be transformed back to period elegance.

Days on a ladder painting have meant...what else? a break from ladders and we spend a day doing some yard work. I have resigned myself to it taking some time to fully restore the grounds on what we like to call the "Burgman block" since we own almost an entire city block of land. One of the pleasant discoveries was this stone path leading from the back yard to the back door. It was discovered when I found a stone covered by ivy and just started cutting away. This garden archeology is fascinating to me and we are just beginning to understand the thought Mr. Burgman put into his garden.We even found the old well pump base to the cistern

Although you can't tell, there is a two level pond under all that ivy! We have started cutting back the ivy off the gravel path that wound by the two level pond, but trust me it will take a lot of work and discovery to get things looking the way they looked back then.  But that will be future project! Some of our neighbor's who have lived there for decades have vague recollection's of sneaking back in "The Grotto" to play in the pond area. It was a favorite "hide and seek' playground for the kids in the neighborhood back in the day.

We also came across some paperwork. A printed listing of the house on Historic properties.com from 2005! at that time (pre 2008 real estate crash), the house was for sale for 94,000.00! In the listing it talks about how the site (3 lots) was used  as beer garden back in the old saloon days! Its a fascinating insight back.

So tomorrow? Work continues!

Burgman building: More moving and painting

One thing we have done is paint the tin appliques in the showroom window space an aged copper finish like that on the store counter and it impart an elegance and depth to the space.

Meanwhile we have been painting the other side of the shop space including the round window areas . Ultimately I plan on trimming the windows out with wood casing ( a more finished look) but for now I need to get things ready to open so we continued the color banding around them.

We keep moving stuff in and its getting full fast which will drive the timetable on the rear shop space so we can be ready for the holiday sales season. We also  put some notices out on Craigslist and other places about our impending opening and people can be seen peering in the windows daily to see what's going on.

A pleasant surprise as the Clematis' is in full bloom. We have had so much rain lately and I'm dying to do more work in the yard.

Burgman Building: Shop window display space work

One of the things we have been working on is the storefront window display space area. The shop windows are great and period with beadboard on the raised shop area panels which makes for great display space, however the walls in the display area are a bit plain. Currently the inside of the windows and the double doors are painted a not very attractive  yellow, doing a little paint research shows they were a medium green (the same as the frieze area in the store was painted originally) and our plan is to go back to that, at the same time we want to unify the wall space at a the display and differentiate it from the main walls. To do that we found a "tin style' material which is a glue up and will be painted to match the trim. This will give the store display windows a more unified look. This tin style material is made of polymers and comes in 2x4 sheets and once painted will look like we have tin wall back in the display area

We should be ready to install hanging rail as soon as we finish the wall panel paintwork and change the frieze area color at the top to the original shade of green that was there.

Overall making, progress and moving in more stuff everyday.

Burgman Building: Inquiries and moving stuff

Seems not a day goes by without someone peering in the shop windows to see if we are open yet. So even though we have tons of stuff to do, we at least staged the front of the shop so when people peer in they will see some of what we have to offer. Yeah, I'll have to move it several times as we paint walls, stencil, rework various mechanicals, but it helps build interest and it's sort of free advertising until we do open.

As it is, I have been switching out stuff in the front showroom windows.

One thing we "inherited' with the property is a bookcase, while not our style it does make a good display piece for small stuff. Boy was it heavy and even after we removed all the shelves it was all we could manage to get move it from the back room to the front.

Of course we have all sorts of interesting 'big things' coming everything from square grand pianos and pump organs to huge pier mirrors and architectural salvage so stay tuned.